


rest stop (drabbles from the loony bin)

by hobijam



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Eating Disorders, Intersex Character, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, PTSD, Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Self-Harm, Suicide, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, bipolar, like???? its just some mental hospital shenanigans with some fucked up kids, this makes it sound sad but i promise this shit is on crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:19:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7642087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobijam/pseuds/hobijam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeonghan is a kleptomaniac, Junhui thinks he's the shit, Soonyoung sees fairies, Jihoon is invisible, and Minghao might explode. <br/>Welcome to Pledis Psychiatric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you forgot something mingyu

Jeonghan awakes to the beeping of machines, which is really not part of his overall plan.

Of course, the plan was to never wake up again, but that’s not the point. The point is, he’s fucking pissed.

An IV drips into his arm, each beat of his weak heart carrying more and more fluid into his body. Sensors cover his chest, almost lost in the grooves between his ribs. Radiating out with Jeonghan as a center point, wires tell all kinds of information about him to the screens that surround him in the ICU. He knows the drill. Dehydrated. Low blood sugar. Low blood pressure. His body is dying, but not fast enough. Soon the machines and IV’s will bloat him up, food forced down his throat by nurses will form into globules of fat along his abdomen, arms, legs. Then, when desperate lacerations on his wrists heal, he’ll be shipped off to his home away from home, Pledis Psychiatric.

“FUCK!” He screams, whips his head from side to side as his lank hair slaps him in the face. Tearing the IV from his skin, he falls out of bed onto unsteady feet, and makes it all of two steps before his vision blacks out and the cool tile of the hospital floor rushes to meet his face.

 

\--

 

Mingyu arrives five minutes late to work, rushing to his office with sneakered feet squeaking along tiled floors. When he arrives at the small office shared by the other day nurses, his friend Wonwoo is waiting, flipping through patient files from a recent transfer.

“Jeonghan and the The Whirlwind are back.”

Mingyu looks up from where he’s clocking in at the computer, the solemn voice of his fellow day nurse, Wonwoo, drawing his attention to the small pile of files that had been transferred through to Pledis Psychiatric earlier in the morning.

“Who?”

Mingyu has only just begun working at Pledis, transferred in himself from a larger psych ward in the next city over, so he's unfamiliar with the regulars. Mingyu scoots his desk chair to where Wonwoo works, sorting through the files and setting up room arrangements. Two photographs peer up at him. One is of a brightly smiling man who can't be older than twenty, bleached hair practically flying off his head in all directions. His eyes almost disappear into the cheesy grin, and one hand is held up in a peace sign, exposing an expanse of skin that looks almost fake, so raised and indented, mottled by scars.

“That's Hoshi. Or The Whirlwind.” Wonwoo laughs. “We're supposed call him by his real name, Kwon Soonyoung, but he usually only responds to Hoshi.”

“How many times has he been here?” Mingyu flips through Soonyoung’s file, noting the intense amount of data on the patient.

“This is his…” Wonwoo gives up trying to remember and reads some of the head doctor, Seungcheol’s, chicken scratch writing on the pages. “...wow, his eighth time. Guy’s been fighting schizophrenia since he was a teen. Looks like he's put down to try ECT too.”

Both Mingyu and Wonwoo sigh. ECT is a last measure, still rather unreliable and unpredictable. It takes a lot out of a patient.  

Reaching the end of Soonyoung’s file, Mingyu comes face-to-photo with someone who can only be described as haunting. Their wide eyes seem to stare through the camera with intensity, the only part of their body that doesn't look wasted away to what is obviously anorexia. Shoulder length brown hair is neglected and tangled, and their skin clings tightly to their bones, pale yellow and sickly looking, like a skeleton.

“Yoon Jeonghan.” Mingyu reads, noting the venus symbol by the portrait. “What about her? I can’t decipher Seungcheol’s writing on this file, must’ve been in a hurry or something.”

“ _He_ has been with us for a while. Maybe three times? Had to be on a tube for his anorexia a few times.”

“He?”

“Jeonghan is intersex. Doctors assigned him as female but he grew up male. ‘Cheol’s papers would’ve told you that if you could read them.”

Mingyu frowns, trying to commit the fact to memory. “Okay…? So... _he_... has anorexia, anxiety, and depression, right?”

“Yeah…” Wonwoo reads further. “Shit, poor Jeonghan… He’s on a feeding program _and_ in for an attempt.”

A door bursts open and the morning gets about ten times louder, and ten times brighter. “Hey boys!” the head therapist, Seokmin, greets, coffee in hand.

“Your favorite is back, Seokmin!” Wonwoo tosses Jeonghan’s file like a frisbee, almost knocking the coffee from Seokmin’s hand.

“I don't have favori- _Jeonghannie_!”

Seokmin grabs the file, smiling happily, while Wonwoo and Mingyu laugh behind their hands.

 

\---

 

Two young men sit in the sterile office of Pledis Psychiatric, waiting impatiently for something they aren’t sure they want.

One of the pair, a bleached-blonde, clear-skinned kid, not too short but not really tall, either, bounces his leg, seemingly unaware of the squeaking noise that echoes across the tiled room with every movement of his rubber sneaker across the floor. His fingers tap against his lips, eyes dart, shoulders roll… and legs jump.

However, the second occupant of the room, dressed in a pale pink sweater that seems to hang off his twiggy frame like his long, lank hair hangs in sheets off his head, _does_ notice the sound of the sneakers, and scowls a bit to himself. Though he and the blonde sit near each other, and face the same future, they are polar opposites. While the first man has too much energy, too many thoughts, all of the long-haired man’s thoughts and energy are missing, leaving him behind as a fragile-looking, unmoving skeleton, waiting in his chair like a prisoner awaits the gallows.

_Squiiirch… Squiiirch… Squiiirch…_

The blond’s legs don’t stop moving, and his fingers fly faster over the dry skin of his lips.

A doctor comes out, rolling behind him a cart full of medical supplies.

_Squiiirchsquiirchsquiirchsquiirchsquiirchsquiirchsquiirchsquiirch-_

“I’m one of your day nurses, Mingyu.” He smiles, and tries to placate the sudden action. Maybe the blonde is nervous? The tired man doesn’t make eye contact; the blond stares fearfully.

Mingyu bends over a file, flipping open its expansive pages and scaning for a name. Mingyu is obviously new; this much information on a patient means they’re returning, and most nurses by now know the two infamous men that sit in the office. “Yoon Jeonghan?”

The sluggish man finally looks up, dragging his eyes to meet Mingyu’s warm, puppyish gaze.

“I just need to take your vitals, real quick.” Mingyu’s hands flutter at his sides, as if unsure of what to do with themselves. Sighing, Jeonghan leans forward, rolling up the sleeve of his sweater and exposing an expanse of marred skin, tight over birdlike bones. Mingyu’s hands are big enough to wrap around Jeonghan’s bicep.

“Okay, and Kwon Soonyoung, you too.”

The blond’s leg freezes, and he suddenly smiles widely, eyes vanishing. “Mingyu. Call me Hoshi!”

“Alright… Hoshi. Anyways. Your arm, please?”

Soonyoung complies, holding his arm out. A Miami Heat t-shirt that is at least three sizes too big slips off his shoulder, and he hoists it back up. Now, most patients are self-conscious about their scars, or at least don’t like to show them. But, Soonyoung, like it’s nothing, shows off the most destroyed and densely scarred skin to Mingyu without a care. Mingyu almost can’t look at the skin- it looks like the fake rubber skin of a horror fx class, which makes it even scarier because Soonyoung is a living person and should _not_ have skin like that.

Mingyu quickly finishes vitals and leads the two into Pledis.

Now, imagine the building as a right corner, with the intake office, nurses station, and lab in the corner. Along each branch, the day room, conference rooms, and then patient rooms line up. Finally, on the ends of each are either therapist offices, or a med bay. A large yard and cafeteria make up the inner sides of the angle.

So, Mingyu motions to the nurse, Sanghyuk, who opens the electronic doors of the patient ward, and leads in Jeonghan and Soonyoung to small, coffin like conference rooms, with barely enough space for what looks like a side table of a couch set and two chairs. He’s about to go mention to Sanghyuk that he should begin the intake when Soonyoung stops him.

“Mingyu? You forgot to take away our shoes. And I have a lighter. And I think Jeonghan stole your pen and that isn’t allowed.”

Jeonghan huff at Soonyoung, and tosses a shiny black pen to Mingyu. Right. On his file it said to watch out for his kleptomanical tendencies.

_It’s gonna be a long shift with those two._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this might be updated soon, might not. just tryna get the hang of writing svt.  
> will be a series of connected drabbles, like my vixx vampire au.  
> hmu at btsdadd on tumblr!


	2. cause and effect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings for ptsd, transphobia, and swearing.

 

“Hoshi’s back.” Junhui mentions to his friend across the table, Minghao. They both are coloring, one of the few pastimes available at Pledis. Minghao works on a picture of Princess Jasmine while Junhui tries to color in an intricate mandala. (Minghao had tried a mandala once, but the frustrating complications of it had caused him to have an episode. Now the nurses print out a special stack of Disney princesses for the boy.) 

“Hoshi is… who?” He asks, searching for just the right orange in the marker bin. His accent is much thicker than Junhui’s; he left China just a year ago while Junhui has had three years and previous training to adapt. 

“Hoshi is…” Junhui laughs. As one of the ‘regulars’ himself, and having at least three stays with Hoshi under his belt, he still can’t quite find the words to describe him. “He’s a whirlwind, as the staff call him. Let’s see… Schizophrenic, annoying, one of those people who are really fast talkers and eat kinda weirdly. Don’t sit across from him in the cafeteria.” 

“Sounds bothersome.” Bothersome is one of Minghao’s favorite new words. He finally finds his orange marker and works on Raja the tiger. 

“I donno. He tends to lighten up the place and make it fun, like I do.” 

Minghao rolls his eyes. 

“Seriously! I make this place fun!” Junhui twists up his face in a petty scowl. “Hakyeon,” he turns to an older patient beside Minghao, who also is coloring a mandala. The deep lines of his face make him look older than he is, which is just a few years senior to Junhui and Minghao. Neither of them know much about him, other than that he’s one of the most depressed human beings that exist in the world, yet somehow manages to smile and act like a father to all the other patients in the ward. 

“Don’t I liven this place up?” Junhui crosses his arms, abandoned in favor of trying to make someone stoke his ego. 

“You make it pretty  _ ‘lit _ ,’” Hakyeon agrees, smiling cheesily. The expression looks fake on his face, but the daddish way he says ‘lit,’ like it’s a term from a different language that he’s sprinkling into his own vocabulary, still makes Junhui laugh. 

“See, Minghao, I make it lit!” 

 

\--

 

Room time happens three times a day in Pledis, each an hour long before lunch, dinner, and before nightly wrap up group. As Junhui likes to point out, it’s just a fancy name for “stay in your rooms and shut up while the staff take a break from the patients shit.” 

However, thanks to a little bending of the rules during one of Junhui and Hoshi’s many stays together, the open door policy and room time boundaries left a loophole: patients lying on their stomachs or sitting in their doorways could talk freely to other patients across the hall without punishment. 

Junhui and Minghao set up for room time, each leaned back against one side of the doorway, legs entangled in a friendly way. They’ve only known each other for the days they’ve been in Pledis together, but each day tends to feel like weeks, and friendships form very quickly. 

To Junhui’s delight, Hoshi is the newest resident in the recently vacated room across the hall from Minghao and his room. The other resident is Jihoon, a rather angry PTSD survivor that only comes out for meals and at night when his insomnia acts up. 

“Hoshi!” Junhui calls across the hall. A familiar head of bleach white hair pops up into sight, looking almost like he’s glowing in the dark of the cavelike room. 

“Hey Jun!” He waves wildly. “Long time no see my dude! What’s been happening?” 

“Wonwoo still won’t let me have a table for myself. Fucker. I talked to Dr. Seokmin about it and he was all-” Junhui puts on a dopey voice that supposedly emulates the head therapist of the hospital- “ _ ‘Junhui, we talked about this, you’re not to have special privileges- _ ’ like, bitch, the fuck? Who does he think he’s talking to?” 

Minghao rolls his eyes. “A narcissist,” he says in Mandarin. 

Junhui’s head snaps towards his roommate, Hoshi forgotten after Minghao’s sudden attack to his momentous yet fragile ego. 

In Mandarin, he replies, “What did you just say to me, you little bug-eyed shit?” 

“I said you’re a narcissist!” 

“Say it louder, I dare you! No one here thinks I’m a narcissist, and you’re just jealous of me!” Junhui grasps at straws, nearly ready to attack. Drawn by the noise, one of the MHTs, Jisoo, begins to walk towards their room. Hoshi watches helplessly, eyes wide and lost in the situation. 

Something shifts inside Minghao, and his eyes narrow.

“Jealous of  _ what _ ? You practically live in a mental ward! You’re going nowhere, you can barely keep your job- you- you- you think you’re so much  _ better  _ than all of us but look at you! You came here in blue paper pants just like all of us! You can’t even tell that-” 

“Enough!” Jisoo yells, cutting off the Mandarin tirade. “Both of you, stop it now or we’ll need to call a code green.” 

“BootyJUUUUUUUICE!” Hoshi hoots unhelpfully. 

But Minghao won’t stop. He stalks angrily down the hall, to the day room, and takes a plastic chair in hand, throwing it to the wall and creating a dent in the plaster. “FUCK!” He screams. He throws another chair before resorting to beating his fists against the wall, pummeling it over and over. 

He’s terrified. He doesn’t know how to control himself when his intermittent explosive disorder, well, explodes. He has so much rage inside his small body that he just doesn’t know how to control, and it’s pouring out of his ears. 

Suddenly, he’s torn away from the wall and into a restraint by Jisoo and Taekwoon, both MHTs. Someone on the loudspeaker, probably Wonwoo, repeats, “Code Green! Carat Unit!” 

There’s a sharp prick in his left asscheek, and suddenly the world goes wobbly. 

Minghao falls asleep. 

 

\---

 

_ Invisible _ . Jihoon curls in on himself. The yelling in the hallway gets louder and louder, he can’t hear his own thoughts. He can’t go to the bad place. He can’t let himself flashback. The yelling is so loud oh god. Can he even understand it anymore? He can’t understand it. What are they yelling about when will it stop oh god he’s gonna- 

 

\---

 

Jihoon is in a closet. 

Normally, he would joke about it, except now, at age sixteen, he fears for his life. He knows that in the living room, just feet away, his father is the one yelling loud enough to shake the walls. Jihoon hopes his voice will make them collapse on this ugly house, bury everyone in rubble and make it quiet again. His binder dangles from the meaty hands of his father, torn to shreds in anger. Broken glass from a missed punch and unfortunate mirror are scattered on the floor. 

“You little FUCK!” His father roars. Jihoon’s teeth chatter hard enough to crack. “Where are you! Where the hell are you!” 

“Daenam! Stop this!” Somewhere, his mother screams. Jihoon buries his head between his knees, clamping them over his ears to try to block out the horrible noise. 

Daenam growls. A muffled sound, like that of a sack of something being thrown against a wall. He can only suppose it’s his mother by the way she lets out a strangled yell. “You wanna support this, this… faggot! You wanna tell her-  _ it-  _ that it’s okay to think these kinda thoughts?!” 

He wants to get up. Fight his father, save his mother. He wants so badly to prove to his father that he is a man, a bigger man than him, and triumphantly take back his destroyed binder. But deep inside, Jihoon knows that he won’t. He can’t. He’s too afraid, too afraid to save his mother from the mess he’s started, too afraid to stand up for himself. He feels like a cockroach. 

Done with harassing his mother, Daenam's footsteps thump down the hallway. They’re heavy, loud, and his father’s labored breathing sounds like the panting of an angry dog. 

Jihoon’s bedroom door crashes open, nearly slammed off the hinges, and he folds into himself further. _Be invisible._ _Don’t let him find you_. 

“Jihoon!” The closet door is yanked off it’s fragile hinges, and it it weren’t for the weight on it’s floor, it would have toppled over. He’s wrenched up from the floor, and with a bone crushing girl on his arm, Daenam marches him up, and slams Jihoon’s face into the wall. He screams as he feels something in his nose crack, and blood begin to gush out, warm and sticky, over his face. 

“What the fuck are you, you little faggot?” Daenam asks. He isn’t looking for an answer, so Jihoon just attempts to keep breathing through his mouth while his nose leaks blood. “You’re trying to be a fucking boy?” 

Jihoon is torn away from the wall and thrown onto the floor. Daenam looms over him, driving his shoe into Jihoon’s ribs over, and over, and over…

 

\---

 

“Jihoon? Jihoonie?” 

Hoshi glances over at his roommate after Junhui and Minghao are subdued, sleeping peacefully in their twin beds. 

However, Jihoon looks the opposite of peaceful. He’s curled up in the corner of the room, between his nightstand and the wall, with the thin hospital blanket pulled around him like a cocoon. His eyes stare at nothing, and his lips quiver. 

“Jihoon, can you hear me?” 

_ Invisible. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu at btsdadd on tumblr!


	3. crazies

Jeonghan stares disinterestedly at his food. In the hospital, it’s dinnertime, and in front of him is a green salad, chicken breast, and rice, but to him it looks like calories, fat, and rot. Grimacing, he looks over to two of his proclaimed “children,” Seungkwan and Hansol, or as he prefers to be called, Vernon. Jeonghan likes to collect the ward newbies, usually younger kids that haven’t been in as often as him. They tend to idolize him, being older and more experienced, and he basks in it.

Seungkwan picks at his food too, having just come down off a binge at lunch, but Vernon eats like a savage. Proclaiming that forks are of no use to him, he tears into multiple slices of chicken at the same time with his teeth, almost  _ growling _ while he eats it. 

“Crazy what happened with that Minghao kid this morning.” Seungkwan murmurs, chin propped up in his palm. He pushes his plate of food away from himself, and a passing MHT notes it on a clipboard. Seungkwan explained earlier to Jeonghan that he’s bulimic and depressed, hence why he’s in the hospital. However, what he hadn’t realized is that after his binge at lunch, the MHT’s locked every bedroom door for an  _ hour _ , so no one can access a toilet. Therefore, he could never purge to complete his cycle. 

“What a psycho.” He continues on with his talk of Minghao. 

“I know.” Jeonghan flips his lank hair, returning from whatever lalaland he’s been staring off into. “This is your first time right?” 

“Yeah?” Seungkwan answers. Through his greasy fingers, Vernon holds up a peace sign. Second visit. 

“Just stay away from people like Minghao. Him, Hoshi, Junhui- they’re  _ crazy _ .”

“Hey.” Vernon clears his throat, scattering chewed up food over the table. The other two occupants screw up their faces in minor disgust before paying attention. “Y’know, I see stuff too. It’s part of my bipolar. When I’m super manic, I get paranoid and have delusions and hallucinate, just like the schizophrenics.” 

“So?” Jeonghan asks dryly. He’s crabby for having not eaten more than 200 calories since before he got into the hospital. 

“So what I mean is why do you call them crazy? Last I checked, we’re all in a mental ward… It’s so sad to see patients separating themselves by the diagnoses and by who has what symptoms when we should all be here for each other…” Vernon sighs, and Seungkwan looks at him curiously. He’s never heard the rather dropout-looking boy talk so deeply. He doesn’t really know how it makes him feel. 

“Well they legitimately are.” Jeonghan’s back in the conversation, somewhat irritated. “You  _ saw _ what happened this morning, right? Would you ever expect me or Kwannie or you to do something like that?” 

“When I’m manic I might.” Vernon scowls. He knows it’s a low blow, but he points to Seungkwan’s exposed wrist, where pale white scars flash in the light. “He used to self harm. You could say that’s crazy, purposely inflicting harm upon yourself.”  Seungkwan’s mouth opens and closes like a fish on land. Jeonghan looks ruffled, like his hair might stand up like a cats when startled.  “And you purposely  _ don’t _ feed yourself. Deprive your body of the food you know it needs. That’s pretty damn crazy, Jeonghan.” 

Jeonghan has finally had enough. “Just get to your point.” He snaps. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken these kids under his wing. 

“My point is that we all came here in an ambulance, and we’re all here to get better. Anyone from the outside world would look at us in our laceless shoes and beltless jeans and call us crazies, so why do it to ourselves in one of our only safe places?” 

Jeonghan won’t have it, but Seungkwan nods.

“I understand, Vernon.” He replies, having gotten over his past self harm being brought up. “It’s like gay people hating on bisexuals, I guess.” 

“Yeah!” Vernon offers a high five, and Seungkwan regretfully touches his palm to his friend’s greasy, chicken covered hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just something i noticed while i was in the hospital and i wanted to talk about.  
> happier chapter coming soon!  
> hmu at btsdadd on tumblr!


	4. jeonghan's first hospitalization

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: severe eating disorder behavior

Jeonghan first notices his body,  _ really  _ notices it, when he’s fifteen. 

Fresh out of the shower, cropped hair full of steaming water, he stares at his reflection. 

Something disgusts him. 

As an intersex man, his body does not look what would normally correspond to male, due to the fact that there’s an extra chromosome in his body and it rather screws with his hormones. So, though he has a penis, behind where his testicles should be is something out of place. A small, malformed vagina, and the source of his wrongly labeled ‘female’ gender marker on his birth certificate. That is not what disgusts him, however. No, he’s long come to terms with his sex and its complications. 

What disgusts him is the thin layer of fat that clings to his skin, creating a small paunch at the bottom of his stomach, the whole organ seeming to protrude from his front just a little too much. Then he notices his cheeks. How chubby they are. And his arms, the dangling fat that he can pinch and roll between his fingers. His thighs, why do they touch? 

He goes to bed dissatisfied, and deeply disturbed by the flaws he’s only just realized he has. Surely there’s something he can do about this? Join a sports team, eat healthier? Yes, he can do that. Then he’ll get rid of the fat, replace it with muscle, and be okay. It’s just ten, fifteen pounds to lose. What’s the big deal? 

The next day, he draws up a diet plan. Healthy food only, he proclaims to his mother. Gladly she complies, all too aware of the family history of weight problems on his father’s side. 

Vegetables: yes. Protein: yes. Sugar, carbs, fat: never. 

Jeonghan loses weight for the first time in his life at fifteen, and something takes root inside of him as he stares at the lower number on the scale. A small seed, but a start nonetheless. 

Slowly, he cuts his daily caloric intake. He reads labels on his bought lunches, and looks in the pantry to see what he really is eating. The numbers astound him. 

He’s eating healthy, yes, but the calories? They’re over the limit! No wonder he’s reached a plateau, stopped losing weight. 

Fat still clings to his bones, and just shy of sixteen, he counts everything. 

What at first was a passing interest in calories becomes an obsession. He counts everything, even a mint a classmate shares with him or a drink of tea in the morning that tastes just a little too sweet. 

First it’s an easy 1000 calories a day. He loses weight. Then 800. 600. 400. 200.

Soon he’s managing 150 to 200 calories a day, even fasting completely, with the help of MiracleNoodle and bouillon cubes. His mother notices. His sallow skin, thinning hair, sharpened cheekbones and sickly protruding collarbones. She notices, but cannot help, until he passes out one day, falling down the stairs and snapping a bird-boned wrist. This sends him to the hospital, where his blood tests and body weight is taken, and come back so unhealthy his doctor calls him a zombie. 

On his eighteenth birthday, too young for the adult ward and too old of adolescent, freshly plastered in a cast and pumped full of sugars and fats from a tube, he goes to Pledis Psychiatric for the first time in a train of many. 

  
  


\---

 

The ambulance ride is scary. It’s his first (conscious) time in the vehicle, and to top it all off the EMT sitting beside him and taking his vitals is alarmingly attractive. Jeonghan’s spent three days in a  _ hospital _ hospital and the sponge baths there do  _ nothing _ to get rid of the mess of his hair or the vaguely vomity odor of his scrubs. 

“God.” The EMT, Taehyung, says. His face looks like he’s barely out of med school. “You really did a number on your body, Yoon.” 

Jeonghan doesn’t respond. He isn’t really sure how, considering that in his mind, he’s doing exactly what needs to be done to achieve a state where he isn’t bathed in self-loathing every time he sees his own reflection. 

“I mean, look at your sugars! And your blood counts!” Taehyung leans in, eyes wide, and though Jeonghan very much appreciates the man’s face and deep voice, what he’s  _ saying _ is another story. “You know, you’re a miracle.” 

Jeonghan forces out a brittle laugh, yanking his facial muscles into what resembles a smile. 

“Y’know, I had a brother that went to Pledis. Yoongi. God, that guy was depressed. Probably one of the worst cases a doctor would ever see. Self-harmed, didn’t eat, the whole shebang. But in there,” Taehyung pauses, deep brown eyes staring at something only he can see. “In there he found some people that changed him, just a little bit. He smiled, talked, even rapped a little bit. He loved rapping before he got real depressed. I have his last mixtape on my phone if you want to hear it-” 

“Last?” Jeonghan finally asks, interrupting. 

Taehyung stops, surprised. “Yeah. He died in Pledis just a few years-”

“TaeTae!” The driver calls out, not taking his eyes off the road. “Chill out a little bit. Kid’s new to the system, he’s probably scared enough as is.” 

“Sorry Joonie.” 

Shaken, Jeonghan doesn’t talk the rest of the ride. 

Someone  _ died _ at Pledis? Sorry, but that’s not how he wants to go out, alone and smelly in a psych ward, with all the crazies. No, he needs a much grander death. Something straight out of a movie.

 

\---

 

“Hey new kid, what’cha name?” The number one consumer of neon clothing in the whole world asks. Really. Number one. Everything on his body, excepting his hospital bracelet, is some shade of neon. It’s actually a feat in itself. 

Jeonghan looks up, scans the boy up and down, and sighs. One of the crazies, most definitely. “Jeonghan.”

“I’m Hoshi. Want a tour of the Carat ward? It’s kind of my job.” Hoshi smiles, exposing crooked buck teeth with a small gap. Does he not understand social cues? Jeonghan is closed in on himself, scowling, and responding in clipped, one word answers. How does this kid not get that he wants to be alone? 

“That’s not your job, Soonyoung, that’s mine.” A tired looking MHT, the one that checked Jeonghan in and performed his search, appears in the day room, having overheard the conversation. “Jeonghan, I’m Jisoo. Not sure if you were paying attention during your ‘interrogation.’” 

“Funny…” Jeonghan drawls. 

“Anyways, I see that you haven’t been shown to your room, so let’s take your stuff there and-” 

A walkie-talkie buzzes at his waist, and Jisoo stiffens. It’s static-ey voice says something seemingly indecipherable, but Jisoo is running for the teen ward, Mountain, almost immediately. Jeonghan watches him go, and realizes with deepening dread that Hoshi is walking down the hallway, beaming smile the last thing Jeonghan wants to see. 

“Looks like I’m gonna do my job after all. C’mon. You’re Jaehwan’s roommate.” Hoshi leads Jeonghan to a room near the end of the hall, on the outward-facing side. It shares a wall with an office; Hoshi explains that the head psychiatrist, Dr. Choi, works within. 

“Do you have any more stuff? Clothes? Books?” Hoshi shakes Jeonghan’s little paper bag, full only of a pair of paper hospital sandals and the hospital shampoo he hates. “Looks like all you have is-” His eyes go wide and he takes a step back, dropping the bag and staring at Jeonghan almost fearfully. “You were at the regular hospital.” 

“Yes?” Jeonghan wishes desperately to just get into his room and ignore this obvious lunatic. 

“Did they… install anything?” Hoshi whispers. Jeonghan feels compelled to whisper his response. “What the hell are you talking about?” 

Hoshi quickly grabs Jeonghan’s forearms, feeling them up and down hard enough to bruise his temperamental skin. When he reaches his wrist cast, Jeonghan yanks his arm away and cradles his broken wrist close to his chest. Undeterred, Hoshi dashes around to Jeonghan’s backside, Hoshi lifts his hair and pinches the back of his neck, rolling the skin between his fingers and tutting to himself. Sighing like an explosion had been averted, he leans against the wall. “Nothing in you yet.” 

“What do you mean by that?” Jeonghan asks angrily. 

Hoshi looks around conspiratorially, before grabbing Jeonghan and pulling him across the hall and into what he can only assume is the schizophrenic man’s room. “Sorry. I disabled their microphones in here so we can talk freely. The regular hospital, the one you were at and pretty much any other, is a machine, you see.” Hoshi talks feverently, hands flying in the air and occasionally pulling on his frizzy hair. “They do things to people on account of the Circle. They  _ install _ things inside of you. You’re lucky they didn’t do anything while you were there-” 

“You mean the  _ Illuminati  _ try to put things in me?” Jeonghan feigns surprised horror. “What ever will I do? It’s almost as if…” His face goes flat. “...I don’t give a fuck.” 

He crosses the hall, ignoring Hoshi’s beseeching cries, and shuts the door behind him. 

A man waits on the bed in Jeonghan’s shared room, looking up from his book over thin, golden glasses. His dark eyes are hooded by thick, strong brows, and his brown hair is coiffed perfectly for someone in paper pants. He looks to be in his mid twenties, and he’s perfect, to Jeonghan. His clothes hang off him like he’s made of wire rather than flesh, his thin fingers grip the book and look pale, bony, sharp. His collarbones jut out enough to hold pennies, and that’s just what Jeonghan can see. Surely the man’s ribs carve out thin lines in his skin, his spine traces a knobbly chain down his back… 

Jaehwan. 

 

\--

 

Jaehwan does a number on Jeonghan. The man is everything the younger wants to be and more. For every pound Jeonghan has lost, Jaehwan has lost more. For every bone that shows, Jaewhan’s is clearer. 

Jaewhan decides to take Jeonghan under his wing, both of them having a fear-based dislike for the schizophrenic, borderline, and other ‘crazy’ patients. They stick with Jaehwan’s little group of bulimics, anorexics, and the more mellow of the depressed patients. Every day, Jeonghan learns a new way to ravage his body. 

Jaewhan pushes his food around, gets just the right portion, and looks to be eating the bare minimum to satisfy the MHTs. He’s not. Really he’s eaten next to nothing, his emptying plate just a trick of the eye. Every morning, for his daily weigh ins, Jaehwan drinks liter upon liter of water, filling his stomach to bursting, and dons his weighted bathrobe, sewed with half-dollars in the lining. He passes any blood test by saying he has severe bruising and offering to pee in a cup instead. Every night, he sneaks off to the bathrooms and exercises, burning off calories that don’t exist because he’s so far into the negatives. 

Jaehwan flirts with death on the daily, and teaches Jeonghan the way to do just the same. He takes Jeonghan into his hands and molds him, trains him in ways to destroy his body and mind. Singlehandedly, Jaehwan sets up Jeonghan for years of hospital hopping, endangerment, and suicidality. Jaewhan ruins Jeonghan’s life, and somehow, Jeonghan lets him. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now, while i have had disordered eating, it's never been as bad as jeonghan or jaehwan's. as well, i've only met people with schizophrenia and become friends with them, never experienced it myself. therefore i will include these characters in my story, but not tell /their/ stories, because that isn't my place.  
> anyways, here's jeonghan's backstory. what did you think? please tell me if there's anything i can improve upon.  
> btsdadd @ tumblr


	5. Clonazepam, Lorazepam, Diazepam, damn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: discussion of suicide attempt  
> title taken from the song clonazepam, by virus

It’s room time again, aka prison hours. Just after dinner and it’s time to lock the kids in their rooms, so the bulimics can’t throw up in the showers and the staff gets a little break. (If it weren’t for Hoshi and Junhui finding impossible ways to cause trouble from their seats at their doorways.) 

“New Kid O’Clock, people.” Hoshi suddenly announces, voice ringing down the hall. Several curious faces peek out of their doorways, conversations halted. Soonyoung and Jihoon’s room, though a little bit smaller because of the way it shares a wall with the waiting room, has a prime view of the central yard, and therefore anyone who comes through it. He’s the designated lookout for when the new people come, or a certain kindly temp nurse from the main “normie” hospital down the road shows up. This time, a small boy, almost child-looking, is strapped to a gurney, looking curiously around. His movements are fast, almost shaking- surely anxiety. 

“Looks like a first-timer!” 

The EMT hands a paper grocery bag full of the kid’s belongings to Sanghyuk at the door, and then is ushered inside to the small waiting room outside the hallways of the ward. 

“Describe him.” Jeonghan peeks his head out of his room just one down to Hoshi’s right. 

“He’s not gonna be one of your cronies, Jeonghan.” Junhui is leaning out of his doorway now; he has the view through the small, re-enforced window into the waiting room. 

“Rude.” Jeonghan flips his muddy brown hair. “I was only wondering how old he was. And what he looked like.” 

“He is… young. Kind of short. Looks like a baby. Mingyu is doing his… Intake. He looks like a tree.” Minghao responds for Junhui, who won’t talk to Jeonghan. The two have a well-known dislike for each other, Junhui hating the way Jeonghan has begun pulling ‘Jaehwan’s’ on younger patients and turning them into hospital hoppers, and Jeonghan hating Junhui for his constant insistence of dominance and bizarre manic episodes.    
“Thanks Minghao, what else?” Jeonghan deciphers Minghao’s accent, and replies slowly. 

“I don’t know. All I can see is his head.” 

Jeonghan rolls his eyes, turning to his roommate, Hakyeon. The older man is in bed, reading a book. With his gold glasses on, he looks especially like the father figure he is to all of Pledis’ younger patients. “Useless.” He mutters. Hakyeon flips a page, nodding along in false agreement. 

 

\---

  
  


“Aren’t you a little young for an adult psych ward?” Hoshi asks, tilting his head and staring at the new kid, whose roommate, Hongbin, practically dragged him into the day room. Hongbin having disappeared to whatever hole he lives in, only Junhui, Minghao, and Hoshi crowd around the new kid. 

“I’m eighteen!” He whines, sighing dramatically. “I turned eighteen last month, okay?” 

“I didn’t catch your name?” Jeonghan appears, away from Vernon and Seungkwan, looking for some sort of attention. He flips his hair and purses his lips. Junhui gags. 

Jeonghan  _ glares. _

“I’m Lee Chan.” He replies uneasily, watching the exchange in front of him. “This is my first time in a hospital.” 

Hoshi smiles. “Well you’re lucky Jun and I are here for you then! We’re the best welcoming committee you could ever ask for!” 

“What are you in for, anyway?” Junhui cuts in. Minghao nods along. 

Chan’s eyes go wide, as if he wasn’t expecting the question. 

“You thought people don’t ask that, right?” Minghao pipes up. “Wrong! It’s the first thing everyone wants to know!” 

“Well, I, uh,” The group nods, almost in unison, attempting to prompt Chan along. “I overdosed on klonopin, vicodin, and vodka.” 

Junhui lets out a low whistle. “You really wanted to die, huh?” 

Minghao elbows him in the chest and mutters something in Mandarin. 

“Sorry.” 

“No, it’s okay, uh…” Chan laughs awkwardly. “I guess you’re right.” 

Junhui is about to speak again, but Sanghyuk leans over the nurses window into the day room, calling for Chan. “The psychiatrist wants to see you! He’s all the way at the end of the hall on the right.” 

Chan nods, and stands up. Hoshi sighs, his new plaything off to go talk to Seungcheol. It gets deadly boring in Pledis, when the only things one can do between lackluster groups is color, write, or watch a staticy tv from ancient times that only plays the news. 

 

\--

 

“So.” Dr. Choi- Seungcheol, as Chan has been told to call him, smiles across his desk, dimples at full blast. “I know you’ve heard this question a million times, but will you tell me why you’re in here?” 

Chan sighs. He  _ has _ answered this question a million times, or at least it feels like it. “I tried to kill myself. Overdose. Vicodin, klonopin, vodka.” 

“And why is that?” 

Blunt. Damn. Chan guesses psychiatrists aren’t known for being compassionate about their speech, like therapists and the MHTs that check people in. “That’s the thing. I don’t really know.” 

Seungcheol’s smile is gone. “What do you mean? Of _course_ you have a reason. What are some of your stressors? What led you up to the attempt on your life?” 

“Well, school, family…” Chan shrugs. “I have the same stressors as everyone else. My parents are happily together, I get average grades, I’m accepted to university…” 

“And yet you’re here.” Seungcheol finishes. “So, what happened that made you take…” He flips through some papers. “About a bottle of vicodin, half a bottle of klonopin, and an impressive amount of vodka?” 

Chan rolls his eyes. Of  _ course _ the doctor has all the technical information. He just wants to hear it from Chan’s mouth. “Well, I had a little fight with my mom that morning. She wanted me to take my sister to school even though I was late, because my father was recovering from surgery.” 

“Is that where you got the vicodin?” 

“Yeah. Anyways, that’s really not the issue. I didn’t really  _ have  _ a reason to kill myself. I just got bored, and kinda tired, and I knew I had the pills in the bathroom, and the vodka in the cabinet, so I took them.” 

“You were… bored.” Seungcheol frowns. “You were bored, so you decided to end your life.” 

“Yeah, I mean, the  _ thought  _ of it had been on my mind for a while. I just decided to act because I was home alone minus my dad, and I felt kinda alone.” 

“Hm.” Glancing at the clock on his desk, Seungcheol sighs. “Are you on any medication?” He says almost to himself, “No, no you’re not. Well, if you consent, I’d like to prescribe you a low dose of fluoxetine, or, Prozac. Let’s see what it does for your mood. Ok?” 

“Yeah, um.” 

“Yes?” 

Chan squirms in his seat. “When will I get out of here?” 

Seungcheol smiles softly, closing his file and getting up to open the office door, indicating that Chan should exit. “Let’s see how the Prozac works, and go from there.” 

Damn doctors and their vague ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways, now we have our little giant <3  
> i legit have the next five chapters planned out and ive been skipping around in writing them,,, i feel so inspired and motivated ??? lmao lets see how long that shit lasts  
> anyways, please talk to me at btsdadd on tumblr, or here in the comments! love ya!


	6. gonna get juiced

 

Jeonghan guesses it’s about three am when his life changes irreversibly for the worst (and the best.) Simply put, while walking to the bathroom on his third day of a fast, after eating no more than 1,000 calories the entire week prior to being in the hospital, his body catches up to his destruction, and he passes out. Hard. His face hits the floor at a fast enough velocity to almost break his long healed wrist again. 

The hospital is sent into a panic, patients are woken up by the frantic whisper-shouting of the nurses, and Jeonghan is sent to the main hospital, to be hooked up to a tube and once again pumped full of liquid calories. 

When he wakes up the next morning, tube in his nose, all he can do is groan. 

What is he doing here? 

Obviously, he’s here because of his anorexia. But that’s just the surface problem. Unable to move his head much on account of the tube, he lifts his arm up and gazes at the skeletal appendage. Somehow, though he’s nearing reached his goal weight, it still looks imperfect. Ugly, even. The skin looks too tight, stretched over his thin bones and nonexistent muscle too thinly and exposing his tendons, blue veins, and knobby knuckles. 

He gulps, throat scratching at the foreign tube inside of it. Is this really the life he wants to live? 

Does he want to constantly count calories, work out until his legs collapse, and constantly hate himself even though he tries? Does he really want to strive towards looking like a skeleton? Why does he do this when all that comes of it is self-hatred, suicide attempts? 

He doesn’t know… 

All he’s known since he was fifteen is hatred. For his body, his face, his personality. All he can expect at this point is to die before thirty, a waste of air. Is there any way to change that? 

What he thinks is a nurse enters the room, and he quickly sees that he’s actually from Pledis, a young college student that leads groups once a week on gender. Jeonghan’s become friends with him, if that isn’t too strong a word to use for their relationship of muttered ‘hello’s’ and conversations on gender in mental health. 

“Hey.” Yukwon opens the door of the ICU, poking his head in. “You look like shit, Jeonghan.” 

He would reply, but there’s a tube down his throat. 

Yukwon takes a few quick steps across the room, placing a warm hand on Jeonghan’s shoulder. He’s wearing athletic clothes, still a little sweating from the dancing he’s mentioned he does. The air conditioner in the room kicks up and Jeonghan’s hit with a mixture of smells; sweat, lemon hand soap, and something sweet. “I only have a few minutes to talk to you.” 

Letting go of Jeonghan’s shoulder, Yukwon leans back, rocking on his heels and blowing out a breath through his lips. “Y’know, I come here every time you fuck up.” Jeonghan wants to say something, but he holds up a hand. “I just wanna say that this is my last time. You’re dying, Jeonghan. You’re killing yourself and I don’t want to watch it anymore.” 

Quickly, Jeonghan whips out his phone, texts Yukwon-

“I’m going to stop.” 

-saying something he’d never expect to come from himself. Is he really going to stop? Can he, this far into his disease? 

Yukwon reads the message, nods. “I hope you will.” His face is solemn, blank. He doesn’t believe in Jeonghan. Hell, Jeonghan doesn’t believe in himself. 

Jeonghan sighs as his friend leaves, leaning back into the bed. Can he really stop? Can he even bring food to his lips? Will his body even accept the apology? Crossing his fingers, he presses a call nurse button. The nurse arrives quickly, probably having just been outside his door, and he shows her his phone screen. 

“I want to try eating by myself.” 

Smiling, she begins the process of de-tubing. 

 

\---

 

Hoshi is quick to sit Chan down at breakfast, pulling two tables together so that they two can sit with Junhui, who scowls at having to sit with people, Minghao, Seungkwan, and Vernon, the latter of two he’s proclaimed to have adopted because their ‘mother’ Jeonghan is gone. 

He knows that the news of what happened to Jeonghan last night (no one is supposed to know, but everybody does thanks to the loud way that Mingyu talks) is making the youngest of their little hospital friend group sad, so he’s being extra loud and distracting today. 

It’s entirely for Chan. Not because his hallucinations are creeping up behind him, closer than ever before- almost touching him. Definitely not. His mind jumps from place to place normally, but today he’s even more erratic, starting sentences and stopping them because he can’t tell what he was doing. 

He wonders if he needs more meds. The voices are fine, for now. 

For now. 

They whisper in his hair, telling secrets. They know everything, about the Circle, about the world… They talk to Hoshi sometimes instead of whispering to each other, tell him things, how to be safer from the Circle while he’s captive in the hospital. Usually after he’s obeyed them, hurt himself…

No. Focus on Chan. 

“Channie, have you heard of bootyjuice?” Hoshi asks absentmindedly, ripping his dry pancakes up and mixing them with the gravy from his biscuit. He and Vernon sit across from each other, the two weird eaters having to look at each other instead of grossing out the other occupants of the table. Vernon is busy putting peanut butter on his pancakes, and Hoshi doesn’t find that too weird. Maybe he’ll try it later. 

“Booty-what?” Chan laughs. Hoshi finds himself smiling too. The kid’s laugh is infectious. 

“Bootyjuice-”

“-Bootyjuice is when they give you a painful enema when you get out of control.” Junhui butts into the conversation with an obvious lie, having recovered from the disgrace of not having his food brought to him like he’s asked for. Despite the lie, Chan looks scared.

“Do they really do that?” Seungkwan, another first-timer, asks. 

Minghao, normally just an observer in conversation and both too shy and too new to talk himself, speaks up for once. “I got ’juiced yesterday. It’s a shot in your butt.” 

“I thought restraining was illegal?” There’s a scared look in Chan’s eyes. Ah, the first experiences of the darker side of a psych hospital. Hoshi can’t remember his first time, but he guesses he looked a lot like Chan did. Or maybe not, considering Chan’s a good kid who will probably never interact with bootyjuice, or the quiet room, or ECT… 

“Technically, yes.” Hoshi answers. “But they can still restrain you if you’re gonna hurt yourself or someone else. And when you act out and can’t control yourself, they ’juice you or put you in the quiet room.” 

Chan nods, a blank look on his face. Vernon laughs, tearing into his pancakes and getting a disgusting mixture of peanut butter, jam, syrup and hot sauce on his face. 

“Oooo-kay…” Junhui pats Chan’s shoulder, trying to snap the younger kid out of his terrified thoughts. “Let’s move onto something lighter…” He scans the room, eyes lighting up when he looks at the mini fridge by the serving counter. “Have you ever gotten milkdrunk?” 

“What? No way.” Hoshi instantly leaps up, ready to run to the newly stocked chocolate milk, when Junhui stops him. 

“Not now. We need a plan.” 

“What’s milkdrunk?” Vernon asks, interest piqued. In his two visits, this is his first time with the legendary Hoshi and Junhui, and he’s a newbie to some of their escapades as well. 

“Milkdrunk is the reason why they keep chocolate milk away from me.” Junhui smiles. “Really, I’m pretty smart for coming up with the idea. I know from my own research that the chocolate milk here contains enough stuff in it to get you a little drunk if you drink a lot of it.” 

“Nuh-uh.” Vernon frowns. “That’s gotta be a lie.”

“You’d mistrust me?” Junhui scowls, and Minghao sends out a pleading look from beside the older.  _ Don’t make him go on another self-righteous tirade. _ It reads. 

“So how do you get milkdrunk?” Seungkwan asks, clearly interested. “I mean, do you just drink a ton of chocolate milk?” 

“Yep. Four boxes. That’s why we each get two max” Hoshi replies, smirking conspiratorially. “Let’s do it at dinner. I’ll talk to my contacts and get us all the milk we need.” 

The rest of the table nods evilly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> was milkdrunk ever a thing at your hospital???  
> i'm allergic to milk so i could never try it without dying but a few of my friends did it and got 'drunk'  
> i feel like its just a fun way to act like youre drunk and lose your inhibition  
> ah well  
> hmu at btsdadd.tumblr.com


	7. installation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> basically a schizophrenic episode.   
> tw: suicidality, caps

YOU  
R   
E   
WORTHLESS  
KILL YOURSELF JUST DO IT JUST KILL YOURSELF RIGHT NOW  
DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT HURT YOURSELF JUST GO JUST DO IT THEY WON'T MISS YOU 

i won't

JUST DO IT SOONYOUNG DON’T YOU SEE DON’T YOU SEE YOU NEED TO DO IT   
JUST RIP A BLADE THROUGH YOUR SKIN WATCH THE BLOOD WATCH THE BLOOD WATCH THE BLOOD WATCH THE BLOOD WATCH THE BLOOD WATCH THE BLOOD WATCH THE BLOOD WATC H T HE B L O O D  
S C REA M REALLY LOUD DO IT NOW SCREAM DO IT SCREAM NOW DO IT SLAM YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE WALL FEEL IT CRUNCH CRUNCH OH SO GOOD SLAM SLAM MAKE YOUR BONES BREAK BREAK YOUR NOSE DO IT DO IT 

no! 

SOONYOUNG THEY HATE YOU EVERYONE HATES YOU THE CIRCLE IS COMING SOONYOUNG IT'S COMING YOU CAN'T SEE IT BUT IT'S THERE YOUR ROOM IS COMPROMISED YOU CAN'T SEE IT YOU CAN’T SEE IT BUT IT'S THERE THEY ARE UNDER YOUR SKIN IT’S TOO LATE THEY'VE ALREADY INSTALLED IT 

“hoshi, are you okay?”

JUMP IN FRONT OF A CAR DO IT YOU'RE SO STUPID DO IT NOW MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMDOOOO ITTTTTT SOONYOUNG THEY THINK YOU'RE CRAZY DO IT THEY THINK YOU'RE CRAZY HA! 

“hoshi!”

THE CIRCLE IS HERE ITS IN ITS IN ITS IN YOU CANT STOP IT SOONYOUNG DOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOITKKKKKKKILL YOURSELF

“mingyu, wonwoo! he’s having an episode!” 

THEYRE GONNA JUICE YOU OOOOH THEY'RE GONNA GET YOU THEY'RE GONNA INSTALL THINGS THEY'LL TAKE OVER YOUR MIND DO IT NOW JUST RIP YOUR ARM UP BITE THE SKIN TEAR INTO IT TEAR OUT THE METAL PUT A PENCIL IN YOUR EAR LET IT BREAK YOUR EARDRUM FEEL THE WARM BLOOD DRIP OUT SO YOU CAN'T HEAR ME MUFFLE ME MUFFLE ME DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT

“soonyoung. soonyoung. we’re giving you something to relax you, okay? you’ll get through this.” 

THERE IS NO END I'LL BE WITH YOU FOREVER SOONYOUNG NO END NO END I'M HERE FOR GOOD ALL YOU CAN DO IS KILL YOURSELF LISTEN TO ME LISTEN TO ME LISTEN LISTEN-   
LiSte...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i tried to convey what hearing voices is like when they take over  
> one of my friends from the hospital is schizoaffective, and she hears voices as part of her psychosis. this is what i gathered it to be like when the voices are overpowering in her head, and i took some liberties with what they said. anyways. hope this is accurate, correct me if it's not!   
> hmu at btsdadd.tumblr.com


	8. aftermath + milkdrunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: discussions of attempted suicide, discussions of schizophrenic hallucinations

Blinking sleep from his eyes, Hoshi sits in Seungcheol’s office, crowded with the addition of Seokmin as well. His brain is foggy from a sedative, and maybe something else. He doesn’t know, but he feels different, more sluggish than usual after a bootyjuicing. 

Both of the doctors look at him intensely, waiting for him to talk first. 

“The voices are getting worse.” 

He finally speaks, throat thick from repressed tears. The voices he hears have indeed been getting worse. Louder, louder, so loud he can barely think his own thoughts. They’ve invaded every corner of his brain and pick it apart at their leisure. Whispering forgotten, they yell, scream,  _ command  _ him to hurt himself, others. 

Of course, the staff already know that, having had to deal with him this morning during his post-breakfast breakdown. 

“How have they been getting worse? I need to know the specifics.” Seungcheol asks, sympathy lining his voice. He knows Hoshi better than most of his patients, save for a few, due to his regular stays at Pledis, and seeing him in so much discomfort is painful for Seungcheol. 

“Well, they’ve all stopped whispering.” Hoshi begins. “The female one mostly screams at me, and tells me to hurt myself. The deep male one yells insults at me, things like, ‘you’re worthless, they won’t miss you,’ ...yeah. And the nasally male one talks about the Circle a lot. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad.” 

“What are they saying right now?” 

Hoshi pauses. “They’re whispering again. It’s about you.” 

Seungcheol’s encouraging half-smile falters. “Is it… good?” 

_ He’s working for them… don’t… install… the Circle wants…  _

“No.” Hoshi finds himself gripped with fear, and his spine goes straight as a pole. The hairs on his forearms tingle and rise; his gut sinks through the floor. There’s definitely something behind him. His hallucinations drip black shadows from the walls, yellow eyes stare at him from within deep black cloaks. Something is behind him there’s something there there’s something there it wants to hurt him- 

“Soonyoung!” 

His attention snaps back to the conversation, and he attempts to push his hallucinations to the side, focus. It somewhat works. Whatever they gave him while he was ’juiced out surely is helping with his psychosis. “Sorry. I was- there’s something-” 

“I need you to focus right now.” Seungcheol and Seokmin look at him worriedly, identical creases between their brows. “I’m going to up your Seroquel again, okay? Do you want something else, something to help you sleep?” 

Hoshi considers it, and remembers his promise to get Junhui and the younger ones milkdrunk at dinner. “Ah, no. I’m okay, for now. Maybe tonight.” 

Pressing his lips in a line, Seungcheol scribbles something on his clipboard and hands a paper to Seokmin. “Take this to Pharmacy for me? Thanks.” 

Hoshi lets himself out of the office. The shadows follow him, waiting to rip him apart and reassemble him into a machine of the Circle. 

 

\---

 

“We need to talk about Jihoon.” Seungcheol speaks up to the staff, gathered in the nurse office and breakroom but for Taekwoon, who is observing pre-dinner room time in the hall. He’s buff enough to convince the patients not to be unruly.

The MHT’s shift in discomfort, Mingyu, Wonwoo, Jisoo, Sanghyuk and Wonshik glancing at each other, the floor, and back to their boss. Seokmin sits beside Seungcheol, wearing the first grim expression the men have ever seen on his face. 

“I come back from the weekend and I hear that he hasn’t stepped foot outside his room but for the bathroom? You’re even bringing  _ meals _ up to him?” Seungcheol has no emotion in his voice- coldly, he reads out the staff’s wrongdoings from a clipboard. “Not only that, but there’s been multiple instances in the dayroom of patients talking openly about their transphobia without consequence? Do you have any idea what this can do to a patient?” 

“Seungcheol,” Wonwoo begins, the longest serving MHT and therefore the unspoken spokesman, “Butting into those conversations only escalates them. With Jihoon in his room, we all thought it was the path of least resistance to just let it die out on it’s own…” 

Seungcheol sighs. “And you admit that he’s been locked away in his room, then?” 

“Yes,” Wonwoo begins, anxiously looking around at his fellow staff for help. 

“He asked for it.” Jisoo leaps in. “Jihoon talked to me during rounds, after he came down from a flashback episode. He said he felt unsafe in the ward with certain patients still in residence and would prefer to stay in his room. And you know we can’t transfer anyone, so we all agreed to let him ride out the problematic patient’s stay, which ends soon, and then revert back to the rules.” 

“Patients are here because they have problems in the outside world that they can’t adapt to.” Seungcheol opens his usual rant, unhearing to the explanations of their action the MHT’s have given. “And we have to create an environment in here conducive to healing. If there is any bullying, aggression, or inappropriate behavior in here, we are allowing the environment to become unsafe to our patients. As a team-” 

“Seungcheol.” Seokmin lays a hand on the doctor’s bicep, who stiffens, then calms. 

“Sorry. I went on a rant. Anyways, um.” He coughs, pink coming to his cheeks at his behavior. “Anyways, let’s work as a team to make a good environment for Jihoon to come out of his room, get his pronouns correct, and  _ stop bringing food into the rooms. _ We don’t need a repeat of what happened with Soonyoung and Junhui’s room a few years ago.” 

The staff collectively shivers, and Mingyu can’t help but feel like he’s left out of something. 

“What, exactly, uh, happened there?” 

Seungcheol shakes his head, and Seokmin answers for him. “They wanted to start a bug army. It was terrible. I still have nightmares about it.” 

Alright. Mingyu nods, turning the thought over in his head. From what he knows already about the two patients, a bug army is entirely possible, hell, even characteristic of them. 

“Anyways, with that out of the way, remember to correct any misgendering you hear, and maybe have a talk with those problematic patients before their discharge tomorrow.” 

The staff nod, and jump back to their jobs. With the room cleared, Seungcheol sighs.

“Don’t take Jihoon to heart, ’Cheollie.” Seokmin attempts to reassure his coworker. The older man brings a hand to his neck, rubbing out a kink, and reaches to make some coffee at the small keurig placed conveniently on the counter. “I just- I’m not just worried about Jihoon. I’ve been thinking about what Soonyoung said all day and I just don’t know what to do with him. I’ve tried practically everything on that kid and he’s barely legal to drink. What else can I do?” 

“You know, when he was admitted you  _ did  _ have him sign the consent for ECT, if needed…” Seokmin muses. He hates to see patients sent to ECT for how it wrecks them afterwards, but the long term results may just be worth it. Either way, it doesn’t hurt to bring it up. 

“I hate to do it to him but I might just have to…” Seungcheol sighs again. Seokmin pities the head psychiatrist, having to make so many specialized treatment plans for patients whose cases and problems he inevitably takes home with him. 

The coffeemaker dings, and Seungcheol makes to leave. Seokmin reaches for his arm, squeezing it lightly. “Don’t let it get to you too much. Wanna get a drink tonight?” 

“I shouldn’t, but I will.” Seungcheol cracks a smile. Seokmin always knows how to make a situation lighter. 

 

\---

 

Hoshi, being a very frequent patient who only rivals the legends that are Hakyeon and Jaehwan, has plenty of what he likes to call ‘connections’ within the ward. A certain cook gives him extra dessert, his friend Jiho helps him cut his clothing with Jeonghan’s stolen scissors into erratic fashions to prevent the facial recognition cameras from seeing him, and a few of the patients do various favors for him just because of his charming personality, or something like that. 

All in all, getting himself and his comrades milkdrunk isn’t that big of a stretch. 

After instructing everyone to grab their allotted two cartons of chocolate milk, all Hoshi has to do is wait. Soon enough, Hakyeon comes smiling his way over, holding out a tray almost  _ full _ of milk cartons. The boys eyes go wide as saucers, and Hoshi laughs. 

“Thank you Hakyeonnie! You’re the best hospital dad ever! 

Hakyeon beams, but the smile doesn’t quite penetrate his eyes. “Courtesy of me and the old fossils. You have fun, but not too much!” He flounces away, laughing to himself, sitting down at a table with a few older patients and a rather morose man whose name Hoshi remembers to be Hongbin. 

“Alright…” Hoshi rubs his hands together, surveying the faces around himself. Junhui has taken the liberty of dividing up the milk, giving two additional cartons to Seungkwan, Chan, Vernon, Minghao, and Hoshi. The Chinese man keeps one extra for himself, predictably. Hoshi decides not to fight it. 

“Cheers!” He opens his milk and grins. “Let’s get  _ fucked up!”  _

He knows that the milk can’t get anyone drunk. But just like the time he and Junhui got out little medicine cups and pretended to do shots with water from the fountain, the power of suggestion can create almost as much fun as real liquor. And who knows, maybe there  _ is  _ something in the milk, because the second it passes Hoshi’s lips he feels calmer; his brain still scattered like the pieces of a puzzle thrown fresh out of it’s box, but at least this time he can see where a few of the pieces join together. 

 

\--

 

“Okay okay,” Seungkwan laughs, dragging his roommate, Vernon, into their bedroom after dinner. He feels lighter, and happier than he’s been in a long time. He doesn’t care that it’s only milk; to him it’s just as powerful as liquor. “Vernon.” He sits his friend down on his bed, settling onto the mattress across from him. “I want to know about you.” 

“What do you want to know?” Vernon’s cheeks are pink, maybe from the constant warmth of their room due to the broken AC, maybe from the milk, maybe from something else. “I mean, I’m eighteen, bipolar, and apparently I eat weird.” 

“Mmm… you rap, right? Rap for me.” 

Vernon coughs. “Nuh-uh.” 

“Please?” Seungkwan leans into his shoulder. 

“Nope.” Vernon pushes Seungkwan away and lies down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. 

“ _ Please?!”  _ Seungkwan throws himself over Vernon, their faces suddenly inches apart. Seemingly oblivious to the closeness, the older continues to beg. 

“I said no.” Vernon mock-punches Seungkwan’s shoulder. He feels like he’s beginning to sober up, and is getting a little too close to Seungkwan for comfort. “Ask again and I’ll lick your face.” 

“Eww!” Shrieks Seungkwan, but still, he doesn’t move. Going still, he stares into Vernon’s eyes. His gaze moves back and forth, as if looking for something in the younger’s pupils. Vernon can’t help but notice just how  _ cute  _ his roommate's face is. Sweet, puckered lips, soft brown eyes, round, peachy face. His moles might be the cutest of all. 

Shit shit shit no gay thoughts. 

“Vernon?” Seungkwan finally asks, voice changed to something softer rather than the loud, uninhibited volume it was. 

Vernon nods. 

“What did you do to get in here?” 

Weighing his options, Vernon sighs. He scoots Seungkwan off of him in order to sit up, and rolls up his sleeve. Underneath, a fresh wrap of gauze is crusted with dried blood, almost black in color. “I tried to bleed out in the bathtub.” He finally says. Seungkwan stares at his wrist. “My sister-” His voice breaks. He’d never have expected that he’d share his story, never expected to be ready to say it. Maybe he isn’t ready to face it. Either way, he can’t stop. It's like a dam has opened in him, and the words spill out. He's barely thought about his suicide attempt since it happened, much less processed it, but here he is, trying to process with his roommate rather than a therapist. “My baby sister found me and called the police all by herself. I was so close to dying, I needed blood right away. We were home alone... I was supposed to watch her until my parents came home from a trip that night but it was all too much and I just needed to go and-” He breaks off. Looks away.    


“I’m so sorry.” Seungkwan whispers.    


Vernon rolls his sleeve back down, and drops his head into his hands morosely. “I fucked her up big time. I’m such a piece of shit.” 

“Vernon…” Seungkwan places a hand on the younger’s shoulder, rubs his thumb in the junction where muscle meets collarbone. “You’re not a piece of shit. What I’m guessing- I mean, I don’t know, but uh- I guess you thought you were doing what had to be done, and it wasn’t like you could control who found you…” Biting his lip, Seungkwan searches for what to say. “I don’t think you’re a piece of shit. And I’m sure your sister is just happy you’re alive…” 

Vernon sniffs, and Seungkwan realizes that he’s crying. Silent tears drip down his face, and he falls over onto his bed, rolls quickly to his side facing the wall instead of Seungkwan. Making a quick decision, Seungkwan lies down beside Vernon, spooning him and wrapping an arm around his middle. He;'s learned that hugs can help more than words sometimes, and even though the hospital has a no touching policy, he's sure that this qualifies as enough of a circumstance to allow it. 

“Shh.” He whispers, feeling oddly like his mother. He nestles his face into the crook of Vernon’s neck. He smells like shampoo, a nice minty kind. “You can cry in front of me. You can always cry in front of me.” 

 

\---

 

Taekwoon quickly gets over his initial surprise at seeing two patients in the same bed when he Seungkwan and Vernon’s room to do rounds about a half hour after dinner. The younger’s face, from what he can see in the dark now that the sun has set, is streaked with tears, and Seungkwan, holding tightly onto his roommate, has a pursed expression, like he’s trying to intimidate an unseen enemy. He carefully picks up Seungkwan and moves him to his own bed, all the while smiling privately to himself. Outside the room, when his fellow MHT, Sanghyuk, asks what’s so funny, he quickly replies, ‘nothing.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think either here or at btsdadd.tumblr.com!   
> i really want to include some good old verkwan in this fic, but idk yet if i want it to be romantic or platonic... anyways...   
> i felt like this was a little awkward. idk. it just didnt flow like usual for me and i wrote this with a more scattered brain.   
> please let me know how i can improve!


	9. not worth it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: discussion of eating disorders

Seokmin settles in his chair, sipping his childish strawberry bubble tea and scrolling through his patient files. Not much has changed since he was last in the office, other than poor Jeonghan getting sent to the main hospital to be force fed. He was hoping it wouldn’t come to that, but he knows it’s what is immediately needed when a patient gets as malnourished as the man had been. 

A knock on his door startles him, and he’s reminded that he’d asked Jeonghan to see him. Speak of the Devil. 

“Hello, Seokmin.” Jeonghan enters, treating the therapist like the somewhat friends the two have become. To Seokmin, having not yet seen Jeonghan after his intubation, he looks different, somehow. His skin is just a little more lively, less like a corpse and more like a human. The dullness of his eyes has diminished, and for the first time in a long time, the traces of a smile are on his lips. Whatever it is, Seokmin is happy to see it. 

“I know I should talk to Seungcheol about this,” Jeonghan begins, “But I want to tell you too. I’m ready to try Prozac.” 

Seokmin nearly pelts Jeonghan in the face with half-chewed boba. For the damnedest time, the patient has refused any kind of medication, no matter the pleas of his therapist and doctor. This is truly a change. 

“Noted.” Seokmin finally manages. “Just curious, what inspired this?” Hopefully, he won’t have to give the same lecture he always gives when Jeonghan falls down the rabbit hole of self-injurious behavior. Maybe something really has shifted. 

Jeonghan looks at the ground, tracing his socked feet over the lines of tile in the floor. “I’m just tired, to be honest. Tired of all of it, anorexia, depression, everything.” 

Seokmin beams, and corrects himself, smile hidden behind his eyes. “You know, being tired and on Prozac won’t change everything. You’ve still got a long road ahead of you, and I know for a fact that you know as well, getting better won’t just be picking up a fork and eating again.” 

Jeonghan nods. 

“I’ve seen so many anorexics come and go in here, Jeonghan. It breaks my heart. But you need to know, if you relapse, that’s okay. As long as you keep trying, see? As long as you care enough to make an effort to be healthy, you’ll get there.” 

Nodding again, Jeonghan stands up. “Thank you, Seokmin. I’ll let you get to your next patient.” 

Startled, the therapist realizes that time is up. 

“Ah, thank you. Good luck, Jeonghan.”

  
  


\---

 

Jeonghan’s been avoiding him for a reason. 

He considers himself a new man after the feeding tube incident, a better person. Someone who is at Pledis to get better, someone who the younger patients can look up to as a positive, rather than negative, role model. And as a new man, he doesn’t like to lose control. He doesn’t like to become a shouting, hateful wreck like some of the patients in Pledis that he despises. 

But no one can be avoided for too long in such a small ward. Especially when his room shares a wall with Jeonghan’s.

“Jaehwan.” He says icily. The older patient is about to be thirty, if Jeonghan remembers right, and vying for the ‘most involuntary visits to Pledis’ record, if there were one. It’s really a wonder the two hadn’t met sooner into their nth stay together. 

“Why the attitude, ’Hannie? I know you’ve been avoiding me…” Jaehwan smirks. He knows exactly what happened to Jeonghan, even though he was admitted during the mans absence. He just wants the satisfaction of getting him worked up. 

“I don’t want to talk to a bad influence.” Jeonghan says over his shoulder, trying to continue down the hallway to the day room from Seokmin’s office. 

“Ah. So your time getting fattened up changed you…” Jaehwan’s words cause Jeonghan to turn, only to see the older examining his nails as if he hasn’t just said the words he knows will hurt the most. “I can’t blame you. Being skinny is hard. Maybe you aren’t cut out for it, hm?” 

Taking a breath, Jeonghan calms his facial expression from the scowl he’s wearing and raises his eyebrows, a mask of innocence. “I learned, with a tube down my throat for the thousandth time, that bones aren’t worth it. You’re toxic to me, Jaehwan.” 

Jaehwan looks scandalized, but Jeonghan knows it’s as fake as his eating habits. Jaehwan is borderline sociopathic in his desires to manipulate, hold power over and control people; he does it to every young person with an eating disorder that he meets in the hospital. Sometimes Jeonghan thinks the other gets a perverse satisfaction from watching people ruin their bodies with his help, the same way he grins with pride when he looks at his own wrecked frame. 

“Toxic? I’m just living my life, ’Hannie. I’m just teaching others how to be beautiful. Insults won’t make me change. They just make you ugly.” 

Jeonghan grimaces, and feels something in his heart change pace, break a little bit and allow room for something like simmering anger to pour in. “You know what’s so ugly?” He bites out, taking a step closer to his former idol. “What’s ugly is spending every waking second worrying about weight. Doing everything in your power to ruin yourself and thinking it’s beautiful when it’s really just a waste. No one is going to remember you for being skinny, no one is going to think,  _ ‘wow _ , that walking skeleton is a  _ specimen  _ of humanity's finest.’ People are gonna remember you for being a manipulative, controlling bastard. Someone who makes himself feel better by killing his body and helping others do the same.” 

Jeonghan laughs, suddenly, shaking his head and smiling at the floor. “I’m done with your bullshit, saying anorexia is your friend. I’m just done. I’m here to gain a healthy amount of weight, get through my issues, and never come back. I’m done being a hospital hopper, and maybe, when you are too, we can talk.” 

Jaehwan recoils, clutching his purposely oversized hospital tee shirt. “I believed in you.” He mutters. “You were so pretty, Jeonghan, why are you putting all that to waste?” 

Disgusted, Jeonghan turns his back. 

From his office door, Seokmin smiles. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so jeonghan's a changed man... wonder if that will last, hm?   
> i have no idea what im doing  
> hmu at btsdadd! please comment with how im doing and if i can improve anything!


	10. you pass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> todays tw- brief mentions of possible suicide attempts

“Tell me what it’s like.”

Junhui asks, seemingly to no one, during his rare down moments. He’s calm- not really manic, not really depressed, and seemingly detached from his overly self-absorbed attitude. Wonwoo, startled, looks up from where he’d been recording what the patients in the day room were busy with.

“What what’s like?”

Junhui stretches out over the table, hands inching towards Wonwoo’s side, and yawns like a cat. “You’re not mentally ill, right? So what’s that like? What’s it like not to have paranoia, or hallucinations, or depression and anxiety? To not fear shadows and take a zillion pills to feel somewhat okay?” He pauses. “...What’s it like to be normal?”

“Oh.”

Wonwoo is taken aback. There’s something… vulnerable… In Junhui’s voice, something that makes him want to give the patient a hug. He awkwardly pats Junhui’s hand, and thinks. Hard.

What is it like?

He’s seen so many patients come and go, plagued by every demon anyone could think of. It hurts him, even thoug he isn’t the one living such a painful life as to end up in a place like Pledis. Though cautioned against it, any nurse with a reasonably sized heart takes their work home with them, and can’t just allow the lives and struggles of their patients to be limited to an 8-hour shift. Still, Wonwoo’s never experienced what the people he meets every day live with.

Scanning the room, his eyes fall on Hakyeon, who entertains Chan and Hansol with a card game. Hakyeon is one of Pledis’ most recurrent patients. Major depressive disorder, suicidality- the guy’s got it rough. He speaks to Wonwoo sometimes, on the visits where Wonwoo is his assigned nurse. Hakyeon’s done nearly everything in his power to die, and would be dead a thousand times over by now if it weren’t for his boyfriend, Jackson. Jackson’s locked away the guns, sharps, medications, watches what comes in and out of their apartment like a hawk, and knows what Hakyeon’s doing a good ninety percent of the time. Still, Hakyeon’s managed to leap off bridges and into traffic, pour rocks into his pockets and fall into rivers, steal pills from pharmacies and overdose in public parks. Wonwoo doesn’t know how Jackson does it; give his heart so completely to someone so far into their depression that even their lover isn’t worth living for.

Hakyeon’s described waking up to Wonwoo once, told how every morning he wishes his eyes don’t open, uses all the energy in his body just to get out of bed. The duration of Hakyeon’s day is empty aching, a need for some sort of pain to help him repent for the mountain of guilt that lives on his shoulders. Guilt for eating, for taking up space, for loving Jackson. Guilt for being alive.

Wonwoo doesn’t know what that’s like. Sure, he’s had rough mornings after a night out, or a study session. But he’s always wanted to wake up, to live. Never once has he felt so hopeless that he’s tried to kill himself, or even thought of it. How could he? Wonwoo lives an ordinary life and doesn’t have anyone important in it yet (other than his parents and older sister), but still, he’s filled with a passion to live, to experience. He’s never known life without it.

Then Wonwoo looks at Jaehwan, fuming quietly in a corner. The other patients aren’t talking to him, not after Jeonghan’s begun to do to torment him with food and his own weight gain. Jaehwan’s been off and on feeding tubes his entire adult life. Hopping from his apartment to the psych ward, traveling from emergency room to Pledis’ lobby. Somehow, the man thinks beauty is found when skin covers only bone, when stomachs cramp emptily around pills and tea.

Wonwoo’s wanted to lose weight- well, gain muscle, more like- before. He’s gone on the paleo diet (for three weeks) and had a brief stint with crossfit. Somehow, even into his mid twenties, his metabolism is like a pubescent teenagers. He’s never had to worry about calories, though he probably should, for whatever he eats practically disappears into his metabolism. Never has he really had a problem with his weight. Hell, in high school, when he was six foot one and 120 pounds soaking wet, Wonwoo prayed at night to gain weight.

How could he ever comprehend the struggles that the people he sees every day go through so admirably?

Wonwoo stares at Junhui’s hands, just a few inches from his own. He’s picking at his cuticles, which he’s complained about before. Apparently the hospital’s little bars of hand soap are too drying and ‘wreak havoc’ on his hands. Junhui wanted new soap, just for himself. Obviously, he’d been denied. Somehow, even though Wonwoo is the one who gets more than fifteen minutes of filtered sunlight a day, Junhui’s the tanner one.

A sudden thought strikes Wonwoo- he wants to hold Junhui’s hands.

What?

Visibly, Wonwoo shakes his head. “No.”

“I’m sorry?” Junhui asks, retracting his hands. “Are you-”

“I just- No, I’m sorry.” Wonwoo scrambles, trying to pick up his rounds sheet and dropping the clipboard on the table with a smack. “Your question- I was trying to answer it.”

Junhui’s eyes light up, and he leans in, face getting closer to Wonwoo’s. “So? Did you think of anything?”

Previously, Wonwoo thought that it was just one of Junhui’s bored, ‘I don’t really care if you answer because I just want to hear myself speak and be philosophical’ questions. But now, the bipolar patient looks very interested, and is staring at Wonwoo as intently as he can (without looking like he cares too much, because that would be uncool.)

“Well, I..” Wonwoo stalls, marking off the codes on his sheet to correspond with what the patients he can currently see are doing. Eating, socializing, socializing, sleeping (?), isolating, socializing... “I’ve never experienced anything close to what you all here at Pledis have. I mean, I get sad at Marley & Me, and can’t get out of bed some days, but not because of a chemical imbalance in my brain. I have complete control over myself...” Wonwoo scans Junhui’s face, looking for a reaction, but there’s a reason Junhui fought so passionately for poker to be re-allowed on his second or third stay- he’s too good at hiding his thoughts.

“I think- uh, I know, I’ve never had any other experience to compare with. So, I guess I can’t really tell you what living without a mental illness is. Sorry.” Wonwoo shrugs, offers a half smile. “Anyways, I have to go check on the rooms, so-”

“You pass.” Junhui’s face breaks into a beaming smile, startling Wonwoo.

“Wait, what?”

Junhui grins wider, catlike. He grabs Wonwoo’s arm, stopping him from leaving, and while the patients aren’t allowed to touch the nurses and vice-versa, Junhui’s hand feel warm and soft enough around Wonwoo’s arm that he lets it slide, if only for the moment.

“The test. You pass it.” Junhui rolls his eyes. “So many of you neurotypical nurses think that since you spend a third of your week with us that you know what it’s like.” He laughs. It’s one of the few real laughs Wonwoo’s heard in here; not a manic laugh of a patient needing sedation, not a depressed, forced laugh, not a snide, angry one. Just... a laugh. “I thought you would be one of the good ones, and I was kinda wondering what your thought on it was, so I asked you.” Shrugging, he chuckles again. “So, you pass.”

Wonwoo lets out a smile of his own, before turning with pink cheeks to complete his check-ins.

So he passed... Huh.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been in a writing rut ! here's a little something <3  
> let me know if i missed any editing, and hmu at btsdadd! i love to talk!  
> comment your thoughts please!


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